Fifty
by Sinhe
Summary: They were so young when the war started that there wasn’t a time without it, so when it ended the world turned over and it was all they could do to cling to the ground. Warnings, slash, 3x1


Author's Notes: This was written for a challenge over on lj, which was to write a sentence for each one of fifty prompts, each about a pairing of characters. I chose Trowa Barton and Heero Yuy. Enjoy.

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**#01 - Motion**

Heero's trained for constant motion, trained to be tireless and inexhaustible, trained to be suicidal in his quest to fulfill his orders; it's just that, without orders or a purpose or a mission, what is he, besides nothing?

**#02 - Cool**

It was cool outside when Heero flew back to L1, Trowa remembers that, but he doesn't ask himself why; they've been trained not to ask questions.

**#03 - Young**

They were so young when the war started that there wasn't a time without it, so when it ended the world turned over and it was all they could do to cling to the ground.

**#04 - Last**

"The last time I've had a home," he whispers to the air, "was in my mother's womb," and it's a pity that he can't remember what that felt like.

**#05 - Wrong**

Heero looks at the ceiling of his room and thinks about the right angles of the pipes above his head, of the green mold growing on the plaster in the left corner, of the trails where water drips when it rains, and decides that it's not so much that he minds his surroundings, just that something is missing and he can't tell what.

**#06 - Gentle**

Catherine's voice is soft when she asks him if he's really happy, and Trowa honestly doesn't know the answer, so he just shrugs and pulls his mask over the side of his face.

**#07 - One**

Trowa knows that if Heero had really wanted to fall off of the face of the earth, if he really wanted off of the radar screen, he could do it with some ease; Trowa's just glad that he decided not to.

**#08 - Thousand**

_A thousand days in a thousand ways_ Heero scribbles in blue marker on the wall just above and to the left of his bed; he's not sure what it means, but he likes it.

**#09 - King**

He whispers his goodbyes to the lions, fingers twined in their manes, and wonders if they understand or care; but then again, they are kings in their own right, and why should the invisibles matter to them?

**#10 - Learn**

Trowa doesn't know where he's going until he is sitting on the shuttle on the way there, address fisted in one hand, bag slung over the other shoulder, and he doesn't know when the decision was made, but he doesn't dispute it.

**#11 - Blur**

Everything is a blur until he finds himself in front of an open door, and Heero is giving him this look that says "what the hell, Trowa?" and he realizes he's been trudging through the rain and that he's soaking and shivering and he doesn't say anything or move, so Heero just pulls him inside and slams the door shut.

**#12 - Wait**

Heero listens to Trowa in the shower, lays out dry clothes next to the door, and takes out his blue marker, writing in small letters _good things come to those who wait_ on the wall near the base of the headboard.

**#13 - Change**

They don't talk about why he's here, or how long he's staying, or what he's going to do while he's here, but they say _hi_ in the morning and _goodnight_ in the evening and sometimes a few words in between, and that's enough for them.

**#14 - Command**

The only food Heero has in the house is a few cans of soup, some rather limp celery, a bag of unopened, uncooked rice, and something that must have once been cheese on a shelf in the refrigerator, so Trowa gives him half a glare and makes a list, letting Heero know without words that the kitchen is now his territory.

**#15 - Hold **

When Trowa wakes up, startled, on the couch, with his fingernails digging into his arms and his lips bloody he can't do anything but shiver, and when Heero comes out of his room on silent feet, he doesn't look up doesn't notice doesn't hear him but Heero's hands on his face are shockingly physical and exactly what he needs.

**#16 – Need**

Heero doesn't like to need, because need is vulnerability, and if he's learned anything it's that you can only afford to be vulnerable if you can afford the possibility of losing everything.

**#17 - Vision**

In Heero's vision of after, he couldn't find any way to imagine that he wouldn't be dead, but then again, he's not so sure that he isn't or that he won't be soon.

**#18 - Attention**

The lines of blue on the walls of Heero's bedroom intrigue Trowa, and he spends the day that Heero is out running his hands over the ink and mouthing the words to himself.

**#19 - Soul**

Trowa's never thought that he has a soul, he's too empty and still inside for that, but he wonders if it counts that he wants one.

**#20 - Picture**

There's a picture in Heero's head of how he should've died, the blood on the grass in the graveyard and Silvia Noventa standing over him with a smoking gun in her shaking hands.

**#21 - Fool**

_The fool is the wisest, not because he has the clearest idea of reality, but because he realizes that he doesn't,_ Heero writes on the wall in blue, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

**#22 - Mad**

It's only when he realizes that he's not yet twenty that Heero realizes how mad the world was, is.

**#23 - Child**

When Trowa walks home from the store, he always looks at the children playing in the park across the street, and is grateful that life moves along even when nothing else does.

**#24 - Now**

When he jolts awake in the middle of the night, Trowa grabs automatically for a gun that isn't there anymore, and it takes him a few moments to separate where he is, when he is, from where he thinks he should be.

**#25 - Shadow**

"Why did you come here?" Heero asks, not really sure why, "Why here? Why me?" but Trowa just shrugs, wraps his arms around his torso, doesn't know the answer.

**#26 - Goodbye**

When Trowa said goodbye, at the end of the war, he thought it meant that he was never coming back, but looking at Heero, asleep on his bed, makes him realize he was just waiting until next time.

**#27 - Hide**

Heero is good at hiding things, especially from himself; he wonders if that's why he's surprised when he kisses Trowa in the morning, before rushing off to the bathroom.

**#28 - Fortune**

Trowa touches his lips and watches Heero walk away; he wonders why he doesn't mind and why he's thinking of maybe trying it again and why he feels _lucky_.

**#29 - Safe**

Trowa follows Heero into the bathroom and touches his shoulders and presses his face against Heero's neck, whispers, "Safe, we're safe now, it's safe," and hopes they can both believe it.

**#30 - Ghost**

_the ghost of war, of gun blasts and explosions and blood, haunts until the survivors forgive themselves for living,_ Heero writes in big loopy letters above his head, watches Trowa touch them and nod; they both know this.

**#31 - Book**

Heero wants a book of their lives, one that reads like fiction and ends with _happily ever after_.

**#32 - Eye**

Trowa's visible eye is vividly green and filled not with revulsion but with something Heero can't name when he leans over Heero's bed late in the night and brushes the bangs out of his face; Heero doesn't regret it when he grabs Trowa wrist and pulls him down.

**#33 - Never**

They were taught how to die, how to not care about their own lives and what happened to them, but now that they have to care, have to _live_, they're not sure they know how.

**#34 - Sing**

The groan of the pipes, the dripping of the faucet, the creak of the floorboard underfoot; the apartment isn't extravagant, but it's perfect, it's just what they need, it's theirs.

**#35 - Sudden**

He thinks that he should expect it, but there's something surprising about Trowa pushing him back against the bathroom door, brushing his bangs out of his eyes, and kissing him.

**#36 - Stop**

There's nothing Trowa can do for Heero's nightmares but press down Heero's thrashing body with his own weight and whisper in his ear that everything will be alright.

**#37 - Time**

No matter how much time they put between them and the war, there are some bruises that will never heal; images of broken bodies and severed limbs, blood and bone and skin.

**#38 - Wash**

They cling together in the night and try to wash each other of the sins they didn't have any choice in committing.

**#39 - Torn**

When things get bad, when one of them can't deal or the other is just too tired, they are torn between giving up altogether and needing each other more.

**#40 - History**

_there will not be another of me, the history will not become the future_ Heero writes in blue, leans his head back against Trowa's shoulder.

**#41 - Power**

Trowa pushes Heero down onto their bed, bites the back of his neck, fingers digging into his shoulder blades, and Heero realizes that he's giving up the power, but he can't concentrate enough to care.

**#42 - Bother**

It doesn't exactly bother Trowa that he's always the one to kiss first, touch first, need first, but he just wonders why that is.

**#43 - God**

Heero doesn't know if he can believe in god or not, but he believes in them, and that's enough for him.

**#44 - Wall**

The wall behind the headboard of their bed is covered in blue scribbles and sentences and half formed phrases, and Trowa loves to run his fingers over the ink and chart the progression as Heero sits on the floor and adds to it.

**#45 - Naked**

Skin is really what it's about, smooth and soft and slightly sweaty, it's about touch, calluses and scars, bruises; it's about how their bodies fit together almost perfectly, it's about symmetry.

**#46 - Drive**

Their conversations are mostly made of silence, neither of them wastes words that can be expressed some other way, so Heero really has no idea what drives him to stay _I love you_.

**#47 - Harm**

When Trowa used to wake up with bruises, it was from being thrown around a cockpit, from narrowly avoiding gunfire, from punching a guard in the face; now, though, it's from Heero's teeth and his fingers and Trowa decides he likes it much better this way.

**#48 - Precious**

They don't exchange rings, they don't say I do, they write _for as long as we have_ in blue, lining the doorframe.

**#49 - Hunger**

Heero kisses Trowa with his whole body, kisses like he thinks this might be the last time, kisses like he thinks that he might never get to do this again, but he knows that if it ever really does happen, he'll be dead and that will be that.

**#50 – Believe**

_and then they lived happily ever after_


End file.
